Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Ladbrokes Ladies Day at Cheltenham

I was over the moon when I got the invite to go to Ladies Day at Cheltenham, courtesy of Ladbrokes, as I'd seen all the fun the bloggers had back in 2015 at Doncaster Races, so I swiftly booked a days holiday from work and began the panic of what to wear.

I eventually settled on this gorgeous Lady V London Hepburn Dress in red, which is unfortunately out of stock at the minute, but they have some lovely other coloured ones in. If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with Lady V dresses, I find the cut and quality unbeatable, and I always feel super confident in them. I popped a petticoat from ebay underneath the dress to help it stick out a bit more, and in the process discovered that driving with a petticoat on is great fun. My dress was all poofed up under the steering wheel and my gear stick and handbrake were just poking out enough for me to use. All good fun.

I accessorised the outfit with my bargain necklace I got from Primark over a year ago now, and a black fascinator from Amazon Prime. I had a black fascinator at my parents house, but as that's a couple of hundred miles away, I had to panic buy this one from Amazon. Although headband ones aren't my favourite this one was perfectly fine, and surprisingly comfortable to wear.

After sitting through a lot of traffic to get there I finally arrived and settled in at the table with the gorgeous ladies Abbey, Hayley, Em, Joelle, Kate, Cassie, Kaz, Amy, Emma and Carrie, the PR. I'd arrived ever so slightly too late for the welcome coffee, but there were still a few biscuits on the table so Abbey and I grabbed some to eat, whilst looking at the menu and settling in.

We were in the Restaurant, which meant we had our table for the whole day, with table service food, drinks and betting, but could also get up and wander around as much as we liked outside. The restaurant itself was lovely, with big screens set up for us to watch the races on and a very neutral theme. The orders for our lunches were taken and then promptly delivered and the food was lovely.

Even though I was slightly spoiled by having a Michelin starred meal only 2 days earlier, the food was of a very high standard, my only complaint being that the presentation wasn't always that great, so the photos aren't as good as they could have been (blogger problems!).

In between courses, I put my first bet on, as I had a really good feeling about Might Bite. The tote betting lady came to our table and I put £4 on each way, and we watched the race on the screen by our table. The atmosphere was amazing as it neared its end, with lots of "Come on!" shouts coming from around the room, and the elation when our horse won was incredible. One of my favourite parts of the day was the atmosphere when someone on our table won a bet!

Once we'd finished eating, we headed outside to soak up some of the lovely sun and to do some people watching. Some of the outfits we saw were amazing, but I also saw a lot of people with their heels off. It made me very smug that I'd chosen to wear flats! It was great that we had access to all the outside areas, and we spent a good amount of time having a wander about.

It was back inside after a while for the cheese course, a drink and then the afternoon tea. They certainly kept us very well fed!

Once we were completely stuffed we headed back out again to take outfit pictures, and for Hayley to do some more vlogging of the day, which you can see below.

All too soon it was time to head home, and I spectacularly lost my car in the car park so spent far too long wandering about trying to find it, seeing all the helicopters taking off and landing.

The day was fantastic, and we certainly were very well looked after, thank you ever so much to Ladbrokes for hosting us and to Carrie for inviting us, it was amazing!